Residents in Newark are now getting a fair shot at getting the many port jobs available thanks to Mayor Ras J. Baraka and the Council on Port Performance coming together to create a Workforce Development Implementation Team.
The first meeting of the team took place last week. The initiative is expected to provide additional opportunities for Newark residents applying for port jobs.
“This partnership is part of our strategy to involve Newark’s business community in training and hiring more residents so that Newarkers can benefit from the growing prosperity of our city,” said Baraka. “As a part of my campaign to ensure that Newark job applicants have fair and open access to port jobs, the new Workforce Development Implementation Team can make a big difference.”
The CPP is composed of members of the Marine Transportation, Logistics and Distribution industry. The industry is experiencing a shortage in workforce talent that needs to be addressed as port activities expand. Council members believe that collaboration with host communities will lead to economic growth, improve workforce development and strengthen the maritime industry’s ability to attract, train and hire a qualified and skilled workforce.
Earlier this year, leaders in Newark took to the streets demanding that the Waterfront Commission, the New York Shipping Association and the International Longshoremen’s Association do more to remedy what city officials considered racial, gender and ethnic inequality in employment at the area ports.
Officials said the companies participated in evident discrimination practices in Newark and Elizabeth, N.J. A 2015 report stated that of the 3,299 registered longshore workers at the Port, only 299 (6.3 percent) had Newark addresses, and that of the 3,299 workers, 2,055 are white, 787 Black, 410 Hispanic, 17 Asian and 30 others. Only 302 were women. Most of the Black workers (523 of 787) come from the predominantly Black I.L.A. Local 1233.
The new council team plans to collaborate with the TLD Talent Development Center at Union County College, which is funded by a $900,000 grant from the New Jersey Office of Labor and Workforce Development, whose mission is to develop and deliver training programs for incumbent TLD workers that will provide skills to unemployed or displaced workers and prepare them for entry into TLD jobs.
